


bleed when I lose (in my bones)

by sunflowersforhyuck (thedawnbeforethesunrise)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Class Differences, Dangerous Situations, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jaewin travel around the country in their little camper van, M/M, Mentioned Drowning, Mentioned acrophobia, Original Universe, Road Trips, climbing adventures with jaewin, fear of falling from heights, johnny cameo - Freeform, kunten cameo, mining, no mcd bc im Soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:42:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28760493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedawnbeforethesunrise/pseuds/sunflowersforhyuck
Summary: Jaehyun and Sicheng are mining partners hunting Eneris, the most coveted rare mineral in the post-apocalyptic world. But despite years of traveling together in their beat-up camper van, Sicheng is still finding his way into Jaehyun’s heart.
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40
Collections: Challenge #4 — Awaken The World





	bleed when I lose (in my bones)

**Author's Note:**

> My first jaewin :'>
> 
> For a little wonder fic fest <3
> 
> [the playlist ! ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2jAk3mQzjuvznl4p5cWMS5)
> 
> (Disclaimer: my knowledge of rocks and minerals is close to 0 I’m sorry)

◐

A decade of life plagued by catastrophe is not an anniversary to celebrate. 

Sicheng stabs his pocket knife into the wood wall of the camper van, only enough for the tip to force itself into the unbudging planks. White-knuckled, his hand drags the blade to make a small etching. Today marks ten years of living on the road, hunting glowing blue rock. Even after all this time, he still can’t fathom his current lifestyle of chasing Eneris deposits all around the country.

“Hey, knife boy.” A deep voice floats in from the driver’s seat. “Try not to destroy Louis. We can’t just get another.” 

Louis is the van’s name. 

“You mean _my_ Louis?” Sicheng licks dry lips and grunts as he yanks his knife out of the planks. “Last time I checked, I’m the one who came with the vehicle.” 

He crawls out of the little cave he’s made for himself: eclectic pillow collection propped up at the head of the bed, uselessly thin blanket slightly rumpled from his date marking, and one singular photo nailed on the wall. It’s the only picture he has of his deceased parents. They didn’t make it out when the asteroid ripped through the atmosphere. It is what it is; apocalypses happen when the world least expects it. In its wake, it left a lot of disaster and of course, Eneris. That, at least, gave Sicheng something to do post end-of-the-world.

Sicheng stands and walks back to the shotgun seat. It’s too bright to be early Sunday morning, but he supposes that is the nature of going west, through golden fields and rippling tall grass. Louis has been holding up well, save for the occasional engine problem. He needs new tires too.

Jaehyun has one hand on top of the wheel, left leg propped up against the door. His arm rests over the back of his seat and Sicheng’s eyes trace the lines of thick muscle. 

“How far are we?” Sicheng squints. The road is impressively straight and strapped along never ending rolling plains. 

“We’re closer than we were an hour ago.” 

“Wow, who would’ve thought.”

Jaehyun pulls a grin at this. His hair ruffles in the light breeze from a slightly cracked window. White muscle tees look the best on him, and Sicheng doesn’t think that just because it’s the easiest thing to scavenge from deserted thrift stores. It’s just how Jaehyun is: a little too clean cut compared to his rough mining style, and a little too handsome to be living in a shitty reality like this. 

“I’m going to sleep. Wake me up when you see a cow.” 

Jaehyun chuckles low, sound thrumming under Sicheng’s conscience. 

  
  


◐

  
  


The Awakening was an asteroid crashing onto Earth, but it was only the first domino to fall. 

Everything that could fall apart did. No electricity, no clean water, disease and infection running rampant like an ant infestation. No sources could be traced to plug the problem, and so the problem became a living and breathing entity, growing on its own. After that single most horrifying event in human history, more followed, toppling over like black and white pieces laid in a planned path. The only difference is, there is no stopping an apocalypse, a second wiping of the Earth. If the universe demands a purge, a purge there shall be. 

Sicheng was fourteen. His parents died from contaminated drinking water. To this day, he wonders if his next drink will kill him. 

The asteroid brought with it another caveat: Eneris, a glowing blue hallucinogenic mineral. They grow in caves and on mountains, deep in the ocean or in rivers. It has been studied and researched, but it is still as ambiguous as its spontaneous debut on Earth. It is the most valuable natural object in the world, but it can kill you if you let it tell you to leap off a cliff. Hallucinations by Eneris are fatal and hard to resist. 

Humanity performed its worst and best acts in the first few years following the Awakening. People came together for the sake of survival, but in the worst way: the rich closed ranks, capitalizing on the disparity of a society already so divisive, so unwilling to change. They pooled their resources to build the gated city, tall gleaming skyscrapers glowing blue from the Eneris deposits which power the metropolis from within its walls. 

And they live in that city on their own, fuck the poor. The rest of the world was left to live on the outskirts, scrambling for scraps and fighting each other to live another day. It is natural selection forged by a system that still exists even when modern society has been eradicated. Trauma is daily conversation, neighborhood war stories that even children have. 

Sometimes Sicheng wishes he died with his parents.

  
  


◐

  
  


There is only one way into the gated city. It is why Sicheng travels with Jaehyun all around the country in their van. 

They mine for Eneris rocks, chasing tips and jobs all over the place. 

In the past decade, the Eneris growth rate has slowed, but demand remains high. A large enough Eneris deposit will get you a ticket into that gated city. It is the only sanctuary in existence on this ruined planet, and while Sicheng feels his dinner come back up his throat at the thought of living with those disgusting rich psychos, it is a necessity. It is guaranteed safety and comfortable living. No more chasing scraps and mining dangerous glowing rock. No more death by free fall. 

He used to do this alone. Rising out of the ashes of his parents’ cremated remains, Sicheng was forced to mine if he wanted to live. He was pretty good as a solo act, picking up small Eneris jobs here and there. It is on his first big job, a huge deposit detected in a national park, that he meets Jaehyun. They form an alliance from that day forward.

Sicheng always thought they were two of a kind, born from the same place in the sky or similar enough that something they saw in each other brought them together like this. Jaehyun is a little broader, stockier, more balanced torso-to-leg ratio. He has fair skin that bruises easily like a peach. Sicheng himself is lithe, long-limbed, and gracefully flexible. Together, they make up for what the other is unable to do; Sicheng bends and folds to the desires of the rock formations, Jaehyun breaks them open. Sicheng has more of a sharp appearance, feline eyes and light steps, and Jaehyun has big eyes that make others feel like they’re being swallowed. 

Sicheng’s favorite thing is when Jaehyun can’t resist a laugh. It bellows out, echoing like they’re in a chamber, their own little found space. 

This is where he makes himself comfortable.

  
  


◐

  
  


People die all the time trying to mine Eneris. 

Occupational hazards, as the Eneris collectors like to say. Collectors are gated city merchants, dealing in Eneris deposits. They are the ones who have the information on where the Eneris is, so you get jobs from them. Conniving little shits. You can also trade your Eneris with them for better climbing equipment. Above all else, though, they’re the gatekeepers of the gated city: bring enough Eneris, they get you a pass into that sanctuary. 

Still, Sicheng would love to toss one of them off a mountain.

“I thought you were gonna stab him back there.” 

Jaehyun’s breath tickles his arm. Sicheng shivers. “Johnny can go choke on those rocks.” 

They’re walking back to the van from visiting a collector they frequent, a tall man named Johnny. His place of work is located in an old apartment complex.

“Easy there. No use in killing someone who can get us into the city.” 

“If I do though…” Sicheng grins and loops an arm around Jaehyun. “We can make off with his Eneris collection. Take it to another collector. Get into the city that way.” 

Jaehyun dips his brown-haired head to laugh. Sicheng revels in it. 

They just got coordinates for a new Eneris job. A good fifty miles away, deep in some forest upstate. Tall trees and emerald foliage, wet conditions. Dangerous, and it’s likely several others have plummeted to their deaths already if the Eneris is high up this time. It’s been a while since they’ve been somewhere temperate. Jaehyun had prepped all of their gear the night before.

Buckled into the seats, Sicheng cranks the key. Jaehyun plugs in the coordinates from Johnny into their GPS. It blinks and chirps, location set. 

They’re on their way, more rocks to collect. 

  
  


◐

  
  


Jaehyun is a lot like Eneris itself. Elusive, coveted, rare. 

Sometimes Sicheng thinks unprotected exposure to the mineral toyed with something in his brain, back when he was doing solo work and there was no anti-hallucinogen gear made yet. Jaehyun can’t be real—he must be a hallucination. Someone as unfathomable and perfect as Jaehyun can’t be an honest to god human. 

On long late nights on the road, when existence is charcoal black and Sicheng has to remind himself he’s still alive, he looks at Jaehyun and thinks about what they’ve been through together. It’s a lot to share between two young twenty-somethings. 

He doesn’t talk about it, but he almost drowned once. The Eneris deposit was deep under a waterfall. Concerned for safety, Jaehyun had adamantly refused to do the job. He didn’t want Sicheng to do it alone, but the boy insisted. That was their first argument, and ultimately Sicheng had ignored him.

The fool he was. When he thinks back, he thinks maybe the Eneris did something to him, made him greedy and reckless. Either way, he lost oxygen midway through the dive, felt water flood his gaping mouth and carve out his lungs. He saw gritty black and he thought for sure he would join his parents to be dust particles of the universe.

Jaehyun had saved him. 

It is then that Sicheng started to wonder about things beyond mining minerals. 

  
  


◐

  
  


“Remember when we could go get food at a drive-thru?” 

“I miss that.” 

They’re laid on top of the van, backs on blankets and pillows from their beds. Sicheng had found some whiskey during their last supermarket scavenge, and now they share the bottle between each other. In their trunk, locked away in a large insulated safebox, their newly replenished Eneris stores sit prettily. Another successful job completed. 

Jaehyun wraps pretty lips around the bottle; it’s hard to turn away. Under dim starlight and the moon herself, Sicheng can see smooth planes of skin, gentle curves of cheekbones and a nose. The world around them lays to rest on the glimmering surface of Jaehyun’s eyes. It’s a privilege.

Sicheng looks up. He wonders if the sky would ever fall, cave into itself. He wonders if the clouds and the eerily perfect blue are all part of a simulation. 

He shares this with Jaehyun. The boy laughs and he feels it in his gut.

“Look, I know the world is really fucked right now, but…” Jaehyun chortles. 

Sicheng shrugs. “What would you do if it was? Like we’re just part of an experiment?” 

Jaehyun pulls the collar of his t-shirt over his nose, thinking. Sicheng considers the possibility of being in love with his mining partner. It’s detrimental, because it’ll hurt more when Jaehyun dies, dropping off the side of some cliff like he never existed in the first place. A reality like this one is no place for romance. It’s hard to resist love, though, when someone becomes your only priority, your prized treasure. 

“Well…we’d be in it together, at least.” Jaehyun runs a finger down Sicheng’s denim thigh, pursing his lips. “That’s the good thing.”

“Is there a bad thing?” 

“Yeah, the fact that we’re in a fucking simulation.” 

He’s laughing again, breathtaking and glorious. A hand rests on Sicheng’s leg.

Jaehyun is worth the pain. 

◐

Whether it’s diving down to the core or climbing to the impossible peak near the sky, Sicheng feels the same regardless. 

Those moments where he’s trudging through time, halfway to the Eneris he’s mining, are always the hardest. Too close to turn back, too far to touch success. In those times, he feels like he’s an inconceivable speck in a world that doesn’t care. The minutes feel like years. Dimensions are beyond his understanding. 

It’s the biggest reported deposit in a long time. Sicheng is waist deep in water, the clumpy skin of dark rock an inch above his head. He’s in the underbelly of a large mountain in the northeastern side of the country. 

It’s a tight space. He knows at any point, the water could rise, the ground could disappear from his soles, the weight of the mountain could fall on him. 

Jaehyun is right behind him, breathing deeply through his anti-hallucinogen mask. Water is dropping somewhere, echoing like a ticking clock. 

“You see anything?” Sicheng’s muffled voice is loud.

Jaehyun blinks large eyes, lashes wet. “Not yet.” 

“I hope we see something soon.” 

It’s cold. The water is ominously dark, and Sicheng has his flashlight under the surface as they push forward. He’s looking for glowing tendrils of blue, slivers of fluorescent light. The Eneris is here somewhere.

“Sicheng.” 

He hums, turning to look back. 

He slips. 

Sounds shake the cavernous space. There’s splashing and shouting. Sicheng feels the bruising punch of rocks on his elbow, his knee, as he struggles to regain balance. Jaehyun catches him. 

“Shit, sorry.” Jaehyun grimaces. 

“Trying to kill me before we make it?” It’s meant to be reassuring, joking around. 

They’ve made it the farthest out of the other miners looking for this specific Eneris deposit. Back outside, one of the miners they met named Kun had broken a leg, and his partner Ten refused to let them continue. The rest gave up or perished with the elements. 

The proximity of the win makes Sicheng greedy. 

“Are you hurt?” Jaehyun wraps fingers around his bicep, worried.

“No, I’m fine. Let’s keep going.” 

“Wait.” 

Sicheng stops thinking, stops moving like a machine coded for one purpose, to mine. Jaehyun is turning over a thought in his head. The urgency is boiling right under his skin, but Jaehyun is the cool water poured over it, settling the anxiety to a simmer. 

“I’m glad we’re doing this together.” 

“Getting sentimental now? Really?” Sicheng lightly punches Jaehyun’s arm. “Let’s talk about this after.” 

“No.” Jaehyun is still holding him. “There might not be an after.” 

Sicheng shuts up. The water drips the passing seconds into the rippling pool. 

“After seeing what happened to Kun, I realized how lucky we are.” Jaehyun sighs in his mask. 

“We’re not lucky. We’re _good_ at this.” 

“Kun and Ten are good too. They almost had enough to get to the city. Now they’ll have to wait for Kun’s leg to heal, if it does…” Jaehyun gulps.

Sicheng breathes out. A hand moves to Jaehyun’s shoulder. “Don’t dwell. It’ll get to your head.” 

“Sicheng, I really…” Jaehyun gulps. “ _Fuck_.” 

And Sicheng thinks he knows where this is going. But he worries, fears it is just an effect of being reliant on each other, being each others’ heroes, and not genuine. He wonders if the Eneris is close and if it’s getting to his partner’s head, even if this is exactly what he wants to hear, dreams of even. It’s cruel. 

So he pulls Jaehyun in by the shirt. “Later. And there _will_ be a later.” 

He must be convincing. Jaehyun lets it go, releases his grip. And then his eyes light up. “Wait, is that—“ 

Sicheng turns and he sees it. Tucked away in a corner, burrowed like a secret, something blue fluoresces against crisp black rock. 

◐

A few more jobs and they’ll have enough. 

But Sicheng knows the road ahead is tumultuous, and there are still unexpected turns that could change their luck in seconds. It’s all about the seconds, the ticking clock. They’re running out of time, but they’re chasing it too. 

The last job they completed, that huge deposit in the cavern, has brought them near the total needed to get to the city. They celebrate in their van, parked in the middle of a desert for the night. No lights, except for a single flashlight with a shirt over it to diffuse shadows. 

A beer downed each, Sicheng remembers. “What were you going to say? In the cavern.”

Flushed pink, splotchy across his nose. Ears are tinged hot crimson and Sicheng wants to run his fingers there. Jaehyun coughs. “Oh, that…”

“Yeah. So?” 

In their little van, cross legged with knees touching, Sicheng faces Jaehyun’s glossy eyes, glinting and shiny like wet rock. He’s sobered up, beer bottle loose in his fingers, curved back draped by a t-shirt. Sicheng is against the side of the van, a pillow in his lap. Soft shadows blur parts of Jaehyun’s fair skin, a little rough and dry from all the mining. 

“What if I told you…” His voice rumbles hesitantly. “I love you?”

“Huh?” Sicheng replies, dumbfounded. 

Flames lick the base of his belly. Jaehyun casts wet blinking eyes at him and Sicheng knows he’s serious. He’s at a loss for words, even though he’s thought of this moment every day they spend together, driving all over the country. It’s all so sudden, but Jaehyun has always been the type to lather care in actions, not words. When he does speak, his words are absolutes. 

Breathless, but with certainty this time. “I love you.” 

It’s real, not a hallucination. No glowing blue rock could make the breaths that fan out hot on Sicheng’s face. Cautious fingers crawl to hold his neck, his jaw. And this, this makes Sicheng think he’s falling through the air, crashing to the ground. He might die tomorrow, but this is _today_. 

“You stole my line.” Sicheng mumbles.

He kisses Jaehyun, witnessing the good in the world upon fluttering lashes. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please lmk how you feel about it, or leave kudos! :> leave me a fact about rocks or minerals if you know any :’)
> 
> I created this dystopian universe as original fiction for a class, and decided to use it for jaewin!
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


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